The State of Cannabis Sustainability: Packaging Requirements
The cannabis industry is growing, and it’s growing fast. Supporting close to half a million employees and enjoying broad support for federal legalization among U.S. adults, weed sales generated $25 billion last year alone. But with growth comes excess, and cannabis is no stranger to the excess of waste created by child-resistant doohickeys, mylar bags, or plastic vaporizer cartridges. To combat the influx of waste that the market necessitates, some states have begun to implement regulations that require cannabis packaging to be more recyclable or sustainable from the get go. As the industry continues to expand, operators, regulators, and packaging companies should all expect the trend of state-down sustainability requirements to continue.
But really, it’s in all of our collective interests to mitigate the amount of waste and pollution created by the industry–not just as humans on this planet, but because sustainability is good business. The more sustainable we can make this industry now, the more inclusive it can be for people who need it now, and those will need it in the future. It also doesn’t hurt that 78% of consumers will opt for a product that is clearly labeled as an environmentally friendly option.
New Mexico, with its new legal marketplace, is now requiring all cannabis containers to be “compostable and recyclable, or made from recycled materials.” New York state made headlines over the last year with a proposed and thus far unprecedented set of rules that requires licensees to implement an internal recycling program and use at least 25% post-consumer recycled materials in new packaging. Most recently, Vermont passed regulations requiring cannabis packaging to be plastic-free, leaving many brands to reimagine their approach to child-resistant boxes, mylars, and lids.
In 2020, Colorado updated its regulations to allow dispensaries to take back waste materials, and relaxed existing statutes to allow for traditional recyclables to be processed in municipal recycling plants without a special permit. This decision followed frustrations from the industry about a lack of available recycling infrastructure to handle packaging waste from cannabis.
The federal government’s continued prohibition of cannabis remains one of the largest barriers to industry-wide sustainability; while the majority of states have some form of legalization/decriminalization, without legalization at the national level, federal entities are not allowed to conduct research that would provide insights into the exact nature of this pollution and inform us how to efficiently lessen cannabis’s growing carbon impact in the coming years.
Similarly, a lack of central regulation can be difficult for cultivators, large and small, to comply with, especially as such laws may change or be amended over time. All operators are required to have child-proof packaging, but the nitty gritty details of what is and is not allowed for packaging still very much varies from state to state. As such, licensees need to become and stay familiar with their own state’s regulations on packaging and streams of waste it creates.
On the policy side, there are several ways regulators can make sustainable packaging both a reality for consumers and less of a headache for cultivators. Those in the industry and those studying it recommend creating meaningful diversion programs that keep cannabis packaging waste from ever getting to the landfill in the first place. Two such examples are the implementation of internal recycling/take-back programs at dispensaries and incentivizing environmental mindfulness by lowering barriers of entry for cultivators who prioritize sustainability in their business model.
In the absence of a uniform standard for sustainability in the cannabis space, lots of businesses and nonprofits are putting their heads together to fill the gaps and encourage more sustainability-centric thinking when it comes to the materials that store our flower, concentrates, or edibles. As regulators continue to debate and industry innovators streamline waste management/reuse, glass jars are easy to reuse and can be simply constructed out of recyclable materials, making them a safe bet for environmentally-compliant packaging.
Our THC containers can be reused for lots of things, too! Check out some of our favorite ideas here.